


Sometimes Your Love is So Quiet

by aladyofsarcasm



Category: Band of Brothers
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Blood and Injury, M/M, Roe's a medic and Babe is accident prone what can i say, Soulmate AU, Swearing, Unreliable Narrator, babe-centric, but its the longest compete story i've ever written and i'm still proud of it, google translate french, i'm sorry i didn't even realize i'd done it until I was editing, just like idiot in love doesn't realize he is loved back, kind of, like entirely his perspective, not heavy angst, starts in past tense and quickly moves to present tense, technically slow burn i guess, there's enough angst in this show i'm not adding to it with a sad ending, this is going to be cheesy and mediocre at best and not my best work, vague allusions and references to sex
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-18
Updated: 2020-09-20
Packaged: 2021-03-05 01:26:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,582
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25386004
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aladyofsarcasm/pseuds/aladyofsarcasm
Summary: “A minute ago, you were telling me to get laid by anyone who wasn’t him, now you’re telling me to go talk to him.”“So you were listening to me.” Bill said poking his fork into the cold food on his plate.“Bill.”“Babe.”The two stare each other down. Babe once again fights the urge to tell Bill everything. He rubs his left thumb against his right thumb, along the letters. A habit he’s taken to doing in the last few weeks since the words had shown up. Bill’s eyes darken as his gaze follows the small movement.“Babe, when did them words show up?”Of course Bill would notice. Nothing gets past the man. Despite knowing the man for barely two months, Bill can read Babe like a book. “I, ah.”Bill runs a hand over his face, then lowers his voice to a bare whisper. “Babe? Do you think Doc Roe’s your soulmate?”A Baberoe Soulmate AU
Relationships: Babe Heffron/Eugene Roe, lot of relationships mentioned none are super plot relevant
Comments: 15
Kudos: 42





	1. The Appearance of an Angel

Operation Market Garden hadn’t seemed any different than the seemingly million aborted missions that came before. No one, especially the Toccoa men took it seriously, not until Captain Nixon said the magic words: “I don’t think their gonna call this one off.”  
After that, everyone took it seriously.  
Pouring over the sand-tables and maps made Babe’s head spin. Then there was the words. The Dutch had a weird way of saying things, or a weird way of spelling what they wanted to say. Languages had never been Babe’s strong suit.  
Ask anyone on his block back home, his inability to learn Latin in Catholic school nearly led to his own mother disowning him.  
But damn him if he didn’t try his best. He focused on landmarks, rivers, trainlines – things that he didn’t necessarily need to the exact name of to get where he was going. Then Bull Randleman started quizzing him on town names and Babe lost a whole night’s worth of sleep being forced to say the names of every town a million times as Bull pointed at each town on the maps.  
He knew where the fuck he was going after that. Hell, he knew where he wasn’t going too. By the end of it, Babe was fairly certain that if they dropped him in the middle of the Netherlands he could find his way all the way back to Aldbourne on his own.  
Okay, maybe not that much, but he damn-well knew the sand tables is the point.

Babe thought he was going to be sick the entire flight to the point where he almost regretted not talking the air sickness pills – even though Bill had told him not to. Bill kept looking at him funny, like he was worried Babe was gonna be sick all over him. Probably was. He was probably regretting telling Babe not to take the pills.  
Hadn't even jumped outta the plane yet and he already had regrets.  
_Just breath, Babe, just breath._ The plane hit a patch of turbulence and his heart flew up into his throat. _Just breath, Heffron, just breath._  
The red light turned on. _Breath, Babe. Just breath._ He clipped himself onto the line.  
Someone slapped his side, “Five okay!”  
“Four okay!” He yelled, and slapped Bill’s side in turn.  
_Breath, Babe, just breath._ He glanced out the window, trying to convince himself it was a practice jump. With a gun, and ammo, and a med kit, and grenades, and TNT and – _BREATH BABE!_  
Then he blinked and found himself falling down through the air. There was no gunshots, no chaos, he could see the ground clearly. Babe remembered how much he actually liked this part, in a “this is crazy but holy shit that view” kinda way. The ground was rushing up fast. Very fast.  
Babe tumbled as he landed, hit his ass like he was supposed to, there was a wind that caught his chute and had him swearing as he struggled to not take off again. It felt surreal, everyone running around, regrouping. Machine gun teams, mortar teams, Radiomen, all collecting their padded bundles of equipment that dropped with them.  
Randleman was running around, helping the replacements like Babe out of their chutes.  
Martin was coordinating the regrouping.  
Compton ran by, followed by Bill who thumped Babe on the shoulder as he passed. Babe hurried to follow.  
“Fucking weird, ain’t it?”  
“What is?” Babe said as he caught up with the pair hunched against a short brick retaining wall.  
Bill gave him a weird look, “not getting shot out of the sky as you fall.”  
Babe stared back at his friend. “Oh.”  
“Honestly, just happy the plane didn’t catch on fire this time.” Compton said with a grin.  
Babe suddenly realized, in the way that you really, finally, realize things you already thought you knew, that Bill and Buck and Bull and Martin and everyone else with little stars on their jump wings had already seen combat.  
Babe had been playing at war, him and the replacements. These guys, they were reliving it while Babe pointed an empty gun at First Platoon and called it tactical training. He felt sick again.  
“Feel jumpier now than I did in fucking Normandy.” Malarkey hit the low retaining wall hard. Muck and Penkala followed, the three Mortar men elbowing each other as they sorted out themselves and their gear.  
“Who would’a thought I’d wish for someone to be shooting at me.” Penkala muttered as he shuffled his gear around, pack of cigarettes dangling from his mouth for safe keeping.  
Muck nodded in agreement with his soulmate. “Fucking eerie this is.”

They walked into Eindhoven heroes. Every citizen in the city, young and old, men and women, came pouring out the buildings, waving little orange flags. Babe never even fired a shot. He forgot all about the fact that hours earlier he had dropped from the sky, mentally preparing himself to kill people. Instead, he spent the day being thanked, and kissed, and hugged and every positive action that is the exact opposite of what his job description said.  
He stole some of the bread that Talbert had been sitting and eating, winking at the man’s lipstick-stained face as he did. He nearly busted a rib laughing when Lipton had to pull Perconte out of a large-breasted woman’s “hug”. He posed for photos and gave little kids bites of chocolate from his rations. Babe felt every bit the hero they called him.  
Life was pretty fucking grand from where he was sitting.

Sitting on a tank the next day, catching a ride out of the region Bull had drilled into his head, Babe starts to feel sick again. It feels different this time though, less of an “I’m gonna hurl” sick and more of an unease that makes Babe feel like his insides are squirming around. They pass a woman holding a baby on the side of the road, her hair chopped short and patchy, a swastika drawn on her forehead.  
Someone gives her a set of rations as they pass.  
When he turns to look back behind him, he sees a red cross jump off the side of a tank and point at a bleeding cut on the side of the woman’s head, other hand holding a white bandage out to her. It doesn’t make him feel any better, seeing the medic’s compassion. He doesn’t want it to. It’s one small, insignificant action against the weight of fuck-knew how much bad. He stops looking at the medic and the woman with her baby.  
She’d slept with the Germans, the Germans were the enemy, that made her the enemy. Probably. The Dutch certainly felt it did.  
He hasn’t even seen real combat yet. Babe hopes he’s made of tougher stuff than what the sick feeling in his stomach is telling him.  
He finds out a few hours later, when it all goes to shit. One second Lt. Brewer is standing there, looking through his binoculars, as obvious as a scarecrow left standing in a fallow field. The next second, he’s writhing on the ground and Babe is yanked of the tank and pushed off into the grass on the side of the road.  
Babe watches one of the medics, Pepping, run up and then almost immediately go down as he gets shot. Babe runs along the side of the ditch, gaze fixated on the two men writhing on the ground.  
“Keep moving!” He hears someone yell, and it’s nothing like the plea Lt. Peacock had called out yesterday when they were heroes. He feels a hand push him along. “Keep moving, Private Heffron!”  
Babe tears his gaze from the men as he sees another medic run up to them. Hands already reaching towards the red falling out of them. He runs low, following the back of the man in front of him.  
His head hits the wall of the house hard, jostling him back to earth from whatever dream land he had been in.  
“Pay attention, Babe!” He hears Bill yell in his ear.  
“Yeah.” Babe mumbles, feet already carrying him forward, obeying orders that he hasn’t listened to. “Yeah.”  
Martin waves his hands in instruction and Babe feels muscle memory slide into place. He leapfrogs with Martin and the others around the side of a series of houses till he catches sight of Bull’s frantic hands.  
“Tiger!” He yells over the din of gunfire, joining in on Bull’s pointing at the British tanks and the camouflaged tank.  
Martin slaps his chest with the back of his hand, “on me, Heffron.”  
Babe nods to Martin’s back as the short man takes off up the road, Babe close on his heels.  
“You got a can-opener, Babe?” Martin says as he scrambles up the front of the tank, it stops just short of running over Babe’s foot.  
“Afraid I don’t, Sarge.” Babe swerves his head in a million directions, not that it’d make a difference, out in the open like this. The driver pops his head out when Martin bangs on the hatch.  
“You’ve got a Kraut tank, hundred years to the left part of that haystack!” Martin gets right to it, pointing his hand at where not even Babe can see the damned tank anymore. The man raises his binoculars and gives the area in front of them a quick once over.  
“I don’t see him.” He sounds skeptical, of all fucking things. Babe snorts. The fucker decides to be skeptical when a soldier tells him there’s a fucking tank ahead.  
“Put a couple shells through that building and you’re gonna see it real good!” Martin yells over the engine of the tank.  
The driver shakes his head. “I can’t. My orders are no unnecessary destruction of property!”  
Martin and Babe share a look. Babe thinks taking out a fucking German tank qualifies as “necessary” in this situation. But he ain’t the tank driver, what the fuck does he know, he’s just a dumb paratrooper.  
“I’m telling you, it’s right there!” Martin says.  
“I believe you,” the driver sounds frustrated. “But if I can’t see the bugger, I can’t bloody well shoot him, can I?”  
Martin shoots a look over his shoulder, Babe shrugs.  
The driver decides he’s finished with the conversation: “Are you staying or going?”  
“He’s gonna see you real soon!” Martin slides off the tank and he and Babe take a step back as the tank begins to move forward.  
“Shit, get back!” Martin shoves Babe back towards the wall that the rest of the platoon is hidden behind. Then the tank blows up and Babe’s shoving Miller to get moving.  
“Pull back! Pull back!” The call going up everywhere around them. They’re yelling and screaming, and everyone is running and then Babe hits the ground hard as a wall somewhere to his left explodes and Miller is dead beside him.  
Babe doesn’t have time to think about that. He jumps up, pulling at Garcia who pulls at Hashey. Leaving their friend dead on the ground.  
The ground shakes as, what Babe thinks is another tank, blows up and he trips over his own feet. He tries to get up but can’t, his leg caught on something that suddenly really fucking hurts.  
“Move! Move, I got this! Get behind cover!” He yells when someone yanks on his shoulder. He’s out in the open and feels like a giant target is on his head but every tug just seems to be cutting up his leg more. He sits up and yanks at the barbed wire cutting up his leg.  
“Fucking. Shit!” His hands are covered in blood as he pulls them away, the razor’s edge of the wire slicing up his hands as easily as it slices up his leg.  
“Medic!” He yells in frustration. He catches a red cross out of the corner of his eye. A bullet knocks him onto his back as it whips the helmet off his head. He looks over to the medic again. “MEDIC!”  
Babe sits back up, yanking at the damned wire with renewed vigor. A red cross, Doc Roe, slides, literally slides up to him. Knees hitting the ground hard and the sheer momentum of the action moving the medic the last few feet to Babe’s side. In the glare of sunlight against exploding wall, Babe could’ve sworn the man had a fucking halo around his head. His own personal angel come to save him from his own stupidity.  
“You’re gonna be all right, Private.” Doc Roe’s voice is calm, soft and steady while the world around them explodes in unbridled chaos. He grabs a hold of Babe’s thumb to move his hand out of the way.  
“You’re gonna be all right.” He repeats, looking at the mess of shredded pant, barbed wire, flesh and blood. Babe grasps his leg as Roe quickly untangles the fucking damned annoying wire from of his leg. Babe had hated the shit in training, now he wants to find a way to melt down every last inch of the stuff and bury it in the bottom of the ocean.  
Babe’s eyes are suddenly drawn away from the Doc and to his own hands. He knows they’re sliced up pretty good, but his thumb is burning like it’s on fire, the one Doc Roe had grabbed and Babe just about shits himself as he see it.  
The words are small, tight, but clearly legible, running down the side of his right thumb down to the heel of his hand.  
_You’re gonna be all right, Private. _  
He looks back up to Doc Roe. A hysterical giggle is caught in the back of his throat.  
“Well I sure as fuck can’t let myself die now, can I!” If he wasn’t under so much pressure, he’d judge himself a bit harsher for such shit first words. He hopes the man won’t hold it against him for putting a swear word on him.  
“You’re loose, c’mon.” Doc Roe moves up to Babe’s head and starts dragging him by his webbing. Babe tries to get his feet under him but the man’s moving him faster than he can right himself. “Guarnere! Give us a hand!”  
“What the fuck you do, Babe?” Bill’s yelling at him as he runs up to help Roe pull Babe along.  
“Got bit by some wire.” Roe says as he pulls a bandage out of his bag once they’ve dragged Babe behind a barn. The medic shakes the tight bundle to unfurl it. “You’re gonna be just fine, Private.”  
“You said that already.” Babe feels a bit in shock. Behind a wall, the ground still shaking and the pinging of gunshots all around, the fact that this medic is his soulmate should really be a consideration for a later time. But it’s all he can focus on.  
“Jus’ making sure ya’ know it.” Roe gives the leg wrapping a last tug before grabbing at Babe’s hands.  
“Medic!”  
Doc Roe doesn’t react to the call as he grabs at Babe’s hands, covering the words he just put on Babe’s right hand with his hands, the man nods to himself, seemingly satisfied with whatever he finds in the cuts on Babe’s hands.  
The medic rips open a packet of sulfa powder with his mouth in a nearly violet action; and Babe should not be thinking it’s the hottest thing he’s seen in a while when there’s still a very real chance he’s gonna die if they don’t get out of here. Roe shakes the powder over Babe’s hands. Then he opens another two bandages and covers both of Babe’s hands in white. “Gonna be fine, Private.”  
“Medic!”  
“Get ‘im outta here, Bill!” Babe blinks and Roe is already running back into the open. Babe is struck with the notion that the man is an angel. He can practically see the wings on him, carrying him back into the gunfire.  
“Yes, sir!” Bill pulls himself back to his feet. “You heard the man; you think you can walk?”  
Babe gives himself a shake, “I dunno. Help me up.”  
Bill pulls him to his feet, careful to avoid touching Babe’s hands. It’s not comfortable, but he can walk. “Let’s go.”__


	2. A Conversation Over (a cold) Breakfast

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Babe asks questions and gets far too philosophical over breakfast and Bill is kind of tired of his friend's shit.

Once Babe starts paying attention, Doc Roe seems to be everywhere.  
At the exercises, right in the middle of it all. Off to the side in a corner at mess. Counting supplies when Babe went to get the final “all clear” on his leg. His hands long scabbed over and forgotten by the medics. He sees Doc Roe sitting and quietly reading, or writing, or fiddling with something in his hands when they have free time. Rare as it is.  
And any time that someone called out for a medic. There was Doc Roe.  
“Why’s he always sitting by himself?” Babe asks after watching the man eat his meal alone, again.  
Bill shrugs. “Just Doc. Always sits on his own, don’t talk much. You and I both know this already.”  
“Why doesn’t he talk to anyone?” Babe pesters.  
Bill drops his fork to the table with a clatter and shoots Babe a glare.  
“What?” Babe feigns ignorance, like this isn’t a thread of discussion they’ve had almost daily for the past several weeks.  
“Why don’t you fucking ask him? Stop asking me ’bout the man. I don’t know why keeps to himself, he always has. He’s good, he’s one of us, he just keeps to himself.” The man’s eyes soften. “Babe. I get it. I do. I really do.”  
Babe really doesn’t think he does.  
His expression must convey that sentiment because Bill sighs. “I don’t know what the man likes, I don’t know what he don’t like. You wanna know the man you gotta do it the old-fashioned way: talk to him.”  
Babe scratches at his neck, “just curious is all.”  
Bill gives him a disbelieving look. “Do you not remember asking me if you had a shot at him?”  
"I did what?” Babe's face heats up and he's sure his face will match his hair soon.  
Bill sighs. “The night we went drinking, you remember, back before the cluster fuck that was Holland. You lost in darts to-”  
“The night I don’t remember because you fuckers got me so drunk I couldn’t stand straight for two days? No Bill, I don’t remember asking you shit.”  
If he’s being honest, Babe only has the vaguest recollection that he lost at darts against Compton – which he remembers only because Luz kept asking for more packs of smokes, claiming Babe hadn’t paid him yet. He very clearly remembers the hangover though. Mind you, most of the men wound up with hangovers after that night.  
“Well you did, and I told you I didn’t know. And I still don’t. But I do know that medics tend to keep to themselves. They all do. Sorta their thing." Bill’s voice brings Babe back to the present. "Along with the whole keeping you alive thing.”  
Babe deflates a little. “Makes sense.”  
Bill slaps him on the arm, face breaking out into a wide grin. “Look, you need to get laid. You like anything with legs. We’ll go into town on the weekend, get you someone who ain’t in a uniform, maybe see if Doris is willing to take you back for a night and have a good time. You won’t even remember this, whatever this is, you got going on.”  
Whatever this is.  
Babe isn’t a quiet man, and as he looks at Bill, he wants to tell him. But it feels wrong to tell Bill before he gets to tell Doc Roe. When there was still a question if he should tell Doc Roe.  
Because the man hasn’t approached him, hasn’t mentioned anything, hasn’t even so much as looked in Babe’s direction. So Babe assumes the guy is waiting on him to say something. Or maybe Doc Roe is ignoring Babe and Babe should take a hint.  
He figured he should stop calling the guy, “Doc Roe” while he thought about it.  
“Bill?”  
“What do ya want now, Babe?”  
“What’s his name?”  
Bill looks at him like he’s grown a second head. “Doc Roe?”  
Babe curls in on himself a little. “Yeah. I don’t even know his first name.”  
Bill leans across the table and Babe can feel one of those signature Bill Guarnere talks coming. “Go talk to him.”  
“But-”  
“I don’t care what you excuse you got Babe. Just go talk to the fucking man if you want to know about him.”  
“Do you know his name?” Babe replies accusingly, floundering for a defense.  
Bill gives him a dirty look, clearly offended, but picks up his fork to start eating again. “Yeah. I do, but I ain’t telling you because you clearly got some issue going on with the man.”  
“A minute ago, you were telling me to get laid by anyone who wasn’t him, now you’re telling me to go talk to him.”  
“So you were listening to me.” Bill said poking his fork into the cold food on his plate.  
“Bill.”  
“Babe.”  
The two stare each other down. Babe once again fights the urge to tell Bill everything. He rubs his left thumb along his right thumb. A habit he’s taken to doing in the last few weeks since the words had shown up. Bill’s eyes darken as his gaze follows the small movement.  
“Babe, when did them words show up?”  
Of course Bill would notice. Nothing gets past the man. Despite knowing the man for barely two months, Bill can read Babe like a book. “I, ah.”  
Bill runs a hand over his face, then lowers his voice to a bare whisper. “Babe? Do you think Doc Roe’s your soulmate?”  
“I, ah.” Babe repeats dumbly.  
“Babe, be honest with old Gonorrhea.” Bill pushes his plate of cold food to the side and crosses his arms on the table, leaning as far into Babe’s space as he can. Babe has never before felt as much like a little kid compared to Bill as he does now. Which really, that was saying something as a replacement who spent most of his time surrounded by Toccoa men. Especially after Holland.  
Babe puts his right hand palm-up on the table in front of Bill, the words on full display. Unable to untie his tongue to say anthing.  
_You’re gonna be all right, Private._  
He’d stared at the words so much since they’d shown up two weeks ago that they were practically seared to the back of his eyelids. The “R”s are sharp and pointy, the “A”s look like little stars. The writing is tightly spaced but neat and entirely legible in a way that Babe could never write so neat and small.  
Bill takes in a slow breath and purses his lips, staring intently down at the words. After a moment he makes one of those weird Bill faces as Babe calls them, one of those faces that could mean anything from "yes" to "no" to "lets get drunk" to "shut up" and shrugs.  
“Okay.” He finally says bringing his gaze back up to Babe’s face.  
“I watched them show up Bill.” Babe fells like he's pleading for Bill to understand. “As he said the words, as he was patching up my leg when I got caught on that damned barbed wire. I saw it happen Bill.”  
He hates that his eyes burn as he speaks. Babe was not going to cry over this. He wasn’t. Not in front of anyone, even Bill. “He’d grabbed my hand to see my leg and said the words. You were there Bill, right after, once he got my leg unhooked you helped pull me behind the wall of that barn as he wrapped my leg.”  
“Okay.”  
Babe lets out a breath and breaths in deep. Feeling like he hasn’t breathed properly since Holland. Still not sure he is now.  
“So why ain’t you two talking then, being all chummy and soulmatey.”  
Babe looks down into his lap. “He didn’t say anything when I spoke back. Bill, he didn’t even look at my face. Just wrapped my leg and ran off.”  
There’s a beat of silence that Babe doesn’t know how to interpret but he mentally braces himself, expecting anything from weird reassurances to a punch that will leave him with a black eye.  
“Babe Heffron you are a moron.” Babe looks up to see Bill looking at him like he’d said something stupid. “We were getting shit on by Germans. And, in case you missed it while you were moping, you idiot, you weren’t the only one calling medic. The poor bastard was too busy to stop and have a little heart-to-heart with you. He also got hit, remember? Probably too wrapped up in ignoring his own pain to pay attention to everyone else’s to notice a soulbond forming.”  
Bill would know how it felt, he had his soulmate, Franny, back in the States nice and safe. But his dumb ass was here. Babe often wondered how that conversation had gone down. Bill had said that the burning of a soulbond wasn’t dissimilar to getting hit with a bullet. Babe had yet to be wounded by anything except barbed wire so he wouldn’t know.  
But Bill isn’t wrong. About any of it. Babe knows he wasn’t the only one hurt, and Babe recalls sitting in the back of a truck, openly staring at Roe and seeing the small hole in the man’s pants, down by his ankle just above the boot. He had been able to just make out the red-pink edge of a bandage underneath.  
“He hasn’t said anything to me since, Bill. I’m just not his soulmate.” Babe mumbled.  
“Jesus, you are thick.”  
“Hey.” Babe thought it was a bit much for Bill to hit a guy this many times when he was already down.  
“Did you not just hear what I said? The doc was busy, if he really didn’t look at you, as you claim.” Bill sounds skeptical that Babe was telling the truth, but he was, Babe would’ve noticed if Doc had looked at him.  
“He was busy, got caught up doing a million and one things, probably forgot who you were. You aint’ exactly old stock yet. He’s hoping that you, his soulmate, is gonna mention something to him. Whoever you are.” Bill waves his hands around emphatically.  
“But what if I’m not his soulmate? What if it’s a broken set?” Babe pulls his hand to his chest and begins rubbing at his thumb again.  
“Broken Set” – wouldn’t that just be perfect. He didn’t want to be a broken set, a soulmate without a soulmate of his own. Someone’s words on him, but his own not on that person. No one wanted that. It happened though; such was the consequences of an imperfect, entirely illogical universe such the one that soulmates functioned on.  
There was as much scientific research in favour of them as there was against soulmates. It was entirely, truly, random chance that determined soulmates. Yeah, some things gave you a better chance at meeting them, soldiers were known to have a higher percentage of soulmated people than civilians. But, even then. The entire system was flawed. The first words that were said to you, but only showed up after they were said and after the person had touched you.  
How many possible soulmates did a person pass in a day all because the casual “hello” wasn’t accompanied by a touch? Then there was the ones you touched but didn’t realize. Maybe the words showed up five seconds after the words were said, but maybe it was five hours, five days. You heard stories all the time of people who went home at the end of the day only to find words on them, many never finding the speaker again.  
Babe remembered reading once that something like 87%, some specific number like that, of the world’s adult population had at least one set of words on them.  
At least one because then there were the people who had multiple sentences on them. Usually people who had met their soulmate as children, by the time they became adults they got new words. The old one’s sometimes fading out until they ceased to exist, sometimes sticking around. People who were part of a broken set were also likely to get a second set of words. Like the universe apologizing for fucking it up the first time.  
The notion doesn’t bring Babe any comfort at the moment.  
Something so random, so “hit and miss”, so illogical, what was the value in putting stock in such a system?  
But people did. Babe did.  
Bill is silent. Babe isn’t sure if it was comforting or not, the man’s silence in the face of Babe’s far too philosophical for breakfast on a Tuesday musings.  
“Who knows Babe,” Bill finally says. “But you ain’t ever gonna know anything if you don’t talk to him.”  
Babe snorts. Leave it to Bill to make something so huge seem so small. “You make it sound like talking to him is easy.”  
“It is.” Bill grabs Babe by the shoulder with one hand and points at his friend’s thumb with the other. “You already spoke to him, now all you gotta do is keep talking.”  
“I guess so.” Babe finally concedes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello!
> 
> Thank you to everyone who commented and gave kudos on the first chapter!  
> (I basically posted the first chapter late at night before I could chicken-out, went to bed and then remembered that I had posted like three days later. God bless anxiety amiright?)
> 
> You ever write something and you know it's annoying exposition and it reads like exposition but you gotta get the information out there because it's plot relevant and the reader needs to know so you end up just shoving it in? Yeah, that's basically what happened at the end there. Please forgive me. 
> 
> I'm still hoping to post a chapter a week but I'm remembering that the reason I never post a multi-chapter fic before is because keeping all the plot points and stuff in order is the hardest thing for me. So please have mercy on me if things fall a little behind. If nothing else, take solace in the fact that this story is like 90% written and I'm just tweaking and shuffling things around so they flow better.
> 
> I love you all, thank you for reading!


	3. Keep Talking

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay.  
>  So, when I said it might be a bit longer than a week I meant like two weeks, not a month. My bad. I'm sorry. I'm really sorry. I did not anticipate getting a full-time job, and the snowballing anxiety that came with it.  
>  But, I'm here, we're back. Anxiety is mostly under control. All is once again right in the world.  
>  Also, the best news: the amazingly kind and helpful and all around perfect human Laura ([Anthrobrat](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Anthrobrat)) has agreed to become a beta-reader for this story and the best hype-woman ever, so you if you notice that this chapter (and the following) are cleaner, clearer and just all around better - it's because of her.

Talking to Doc Roe is a lot harder than Babe wants to admit, even harder than he thought it would be.  
Which is saying something because he had thought it would be hard. In the last few days Doc Roe managed to be everywhere except where Babe was. And then, when Babe was in the same space as the doc, there were people and the doc was busy, or Babe was in the middle of an exercise or whatever excuse it was that Babe convinced himself of.  
So maybe it isn’t that talking to the man is hard as much as it is that Babe is really good at talking himself out of talking to him.  
Bill still wouldn’t tell him Doc’s real name, which increasingly becomes a problem as Babe increasingly spends time thinking about his soulmate. He’s toyed with the idea of a pet name, but Babe doesn’t know the man enough to know if he is a “Darling” or a “Sweetheart” or a “Jackass.”  
In his head, in the deep corners of his mind that he doesn’t look too closely at, Babe calls him “Angel,” never quite having managed to shake the strange image he got of the man in Holland. But he doesn’t think that the quiet medic would like that name, so he tries to ignore it.  
It’s still there, but he tries not to call the man an angel.  
Not that the lack of name, or the fact that Babe doesn’t talk to him, does anything to dissuade any part of his exploding crush on the man. Within a month of getting the words he’s already debating the pros and cons of Heffron-Roe versus Roe-Heffron.  
Babe knows he’s being stupid; being soulmates isn’t a guarantee of romantic love. Being soulmates isn’t a guarantee of anything, actually. Babe knows that, but he still hopes.  
The man is tall, and his dark hair almost looks blue in the right lighting, and against his pale skin the man always looks a little cold, and Babe wants to bundle him in blankets and cuddle him in front of a fire and- fuck. He looks down tiredly at his burning wet hand, the surprisingly hot coffee overflowing the cup he’s holding and turning the back of his hand pink. He can practically hear Bill’s laughter behind him.  
Babe’s being stupid and daydreaming about fucking cuddling this person like there isn’t a very real possibility that his words aren’t somewhere on Doc Roe’s body. If Doc Roe doesn’t have Babe’s words on him, Babe thinks he just might make his next jump without a chute.  
He just can’t stand the thought of being a broken set. It’s better to think that Bill’s right. That Doc Roe didn’t notice the bond forming, that he didn’t know who his soulmate was. That he’s maybe still waiting for Babe to make a move. But that thought is terrifying in its own way.  
Babe busies himself cleaning up the spilt coffee as he ponders the various ways the scenario could go: the words horrible, bad, not fun, painful, and soul crushing make several appearances.  
Babe really is just some still-relatively-inexperienced, loud-mouthed, ginger replacement from Philly. Doc Roe is fucking Doc Roe. A man seemingly infamous within the company, within the battalion even. Quiet, quick on his feet, fast, efficient, the men spoke of Doc Roe like he was some supernatural being able to pull them back from the clutches of death. Which, technically, wasn’t wrong. That was the man’s job.  
Compared to Doc Roe, Babe feels small and insignificant. No amount of fantasizing and dreaming and contemplating hyphenated names could change the fact that Babe worries he isn’t enough.  
It’s something that Babe hasn’t told Bill. For all the man’s encouragement and complaints about Babe pining, Babe still can’t quite manage to voice his fears. He agrees with Bill, all he has to do is keep talking to the man. But what if Doc Roe doesn’t want to talk to him?  
What if Doc Roe just doesn’t like him?  
Babe sighs quietly as he throws the wet napkin into a small bin beside the large coffee dispenser, wincing as the cooks in the kitchen not five feet away turn to glare at the sound of the wet splat.  
He mentally curls inward and turns away from their eyes, facing the room at large. This early in the morning the mess is usually devoid of all life except the cooks and the odd soldier who, like Babe, has been driven from sleep by nightmares and mad thoughts that seem to run circles around the mind.  
In his tired, distracted state, Babe almost doesn’t register the other man’s presence. Then, he recognizes the red cross helmet on the table beside an elbow and a curled posture that leaves only the very tips of the man’s dark hair visible above his tucked shoulders.  
Babe grips his cup tightly as he stands motionless, a deer caught in the light.  
In an instant, a thousand things run through Babe’s mind. Why’s he here? Babe should sit with the doc, give him some company. He should leave the building entirely to avoid disrupting him.  
A voice that sounds horrifyingly like Bill tells Babe that Bill would actually snap and finally kill him if he didn’t say anything to Roe. All of his readied excuses for not talking to the man disappear in the early morning empty mess.  
He’ll just sit. Grunt out a hello and sit. They don’t have to actually talk, right?  
Babe lets out an audible breath and begins to walk to Roe’s table.  
It’s early. The man probably wants to be left alone. You don’t really come here because you like waking up before you have to, you come here because you had a shit night and can’t just lay in bed anymore.  
It was just sitting. He could sit. He was really good at sitting.  
The man’s body is curled around a cup of coffee, and, judging by the lack of movement, he is off in his own world somewhere. Babe can’t recall ever being so scared of talking to someone. And that includes the time he had to tell his Ma he’d gone and broken the expensive vase his grandmother had given her as a wedding present.  
Arriving at the table the man is currently hunched over, Babe nearly trips as he slides into the opposite bench. His face breaks into a wide grin as he settles, trying not to look like as much of a loud, bumbling idiot as he just was, but Doc Roe doesn’t look up from his coffee.  
Babe knows the man is handsome. From a distance anyone could see his dark hair, straight-back, and easy movements and be in awe. But up close? Up close the man is something else. Babe thinks he’s the most beautiful person he’s ever seen. This close to the man Babe is able to really take in all the dark hair and pale skin, but now Babe can also see that his eyes are a shade of blue so dark it’s almost black. Doc Roe really does look like an angel. He’s never going to shake the nickname now.  
He taps his fingers lightly against the side of his cup, eyes darting everywhere as he tries not to creep the man out by staring. Babe knows himself. He knows he’s one impulsive thought away from blurting out something stupid. He tries, he really does try to keep quiet. Because that’s what he told himself, but even when nervous Babe can’t seem to keep his fucking mouth shut.  
Doc Roe’s forehead wrinkles and his head tilts up, looking inquisitively at Babe’s quietly tapping fingers.  
“So, what brings you to this fine establishment this early in the morning?” Is what comes out of his mouth. Babe will admit it’s not his finest work. Actually, this ten-second moment might count as the worst ten seconds of Babe’s life.  
Doc Roe’s eyes slowly move up to Babe’s face, and the medic gives him a confused look.  
“Mornin’ already?” The man finally asks.  
“Yeah. It’s early, but it’s morning.” Babe replies slowly. Better make it the worst thirty seconds of his life. “You okay?”  
The man runs his hands through his hair and looks back down at the cup of coffee in front of him. “Merde.”  
“What?” Babe gives Roe his own confused look. “Everything okay there, Doc?”  
“Yeah.” The man nods, seemingly to himself. “Yeah. Long night is all.”  
“You not get much sleep or something?” Babe says as he mentally debates if he should get the man a pillow or a dunk in an ice bath.  
Doc Roe lets out a small noise, like he finds the thought of sleep funny. “No, I just got back from the hospital. Lt. Heyliger’s gonna make it, but it was touch and go there for a while.”  
Right, Moose, reason one thousand and one that Babe is struggling to sleep.  
“Bon rein, all of ‘em,” the medic continues. “Fuckin’ off’cers giving ‘im too much morphine. Fuckin’ three syrettes. Three. They oughta know bett’r. Fuck. That’s prob’ly ‘nough to knock out an actual fuckin’ moose.”  
Babe’s not sure if it’s the increasingly thick southern accent or the medic’s tiredness that’s making it sound like his words slur together. Maybe both.  
The man runs a hand over his face and Babe’s eyes are drawn to the dark circles around his eyes. They make his already dark eyes look like black holes against his pale skin. It’s almost macabre in the dim light of the early morning mess.  
“Well I’m glad Moose‘ll make it.” Babe raises his cup,taps it against the other man’s cup in a small cheers, and takes a drink. Knowing the Lieutenant will live is more of a comfort than Babe realized it would be. “We got you to thank for that.”  
Doc Roe isn’t looking at him, he’s looking somewhere over Babe’s left shoulder. “Was the doct’rs tha’ saved ‘im, I jus got ‘im there.” He says sluggishly.  
Babe has never heard the man say more than one sentence at a time; usually it was one word, as he was notorious for his quiet nature. Accordingly, Babe’s almost ecstatic that the man is even talking to him. That said, he isn’t sure if this conversation is what he meant when he’d told himself to talk to the man, and it definitely isn’t what he meant when he told himself to shut up and sit down. “Well, to me that sounds like we still owe you a thanks.”  
The medic doesn’t respond and his hands find their way around the cup of coffee before stilling. When he stops moving, the man looks like he’s sleeping with his eyes open. It’s weird, in a somehow endearing way. Kinda like the man’s accent, though that accent is making it a bit hard for him to follow what the doc is saying. He wonders if the man is even truly aware of Babe’s presence, tired as he obviously is.  
Babe chews on the inside of his cheek, contemplating really sticking his foot in his mouth as they sit in silence. He taps the side of his cup, desperate to fill the silence. Roe’s gaze is drawn again to the soft sound.  
“Babe.” He blurts out. “I mean, that’s my name, I’m Heffron. I’m Babe. I’m Babe Heffron.”  
The man doesn’t react as Babe feels the beginning of a ramble starting, the pitch of his voice going in a million directions.  
“You patched me up in Holland, probably don’t remember, you were patching up a bunch of us.” He stops himself before he gets to the point where he can’t stop, and holds out his hand across the table. Belatedly realizing he’s held out his right hand, Babe has come to a point he never thought possible where he wishes he had deliberately given someone the wrong hand to shake.  
Mind you, Babe would consider this to be an exceptional circumstance. Now is clearly not the time to talk about soulmates with the man.  
“Sorta name is Babe?” Doc Roe blinks up at him.  
“Well, that’s what. That’s just. You see, my brother. He. I.” Babe feels like his brain is short-circuiting. He takes a deep breath.  
“That’s just what everyone calls me. You’re Doc, I’m Babe.” Babe gestures at each in turn, afterward dropping his hand as it’s clear that the man doesn’t even notice the attempt at a handshake.  
The medic gives a small nod and drops his head, somehow curling his shoulders higher around his head, mumbling something under his breath that’s too quiet for Babe to make out.  
“What’chu say?”  
Doc Roe swallows and speaks, eyes squinting up at Babe: “M’ name’s Gene.”  
Babe can’t help the grin that overtakes his face. He can practically hear the choir of angels singing in his head. “Gene. I like that. Suits you.”  
He means it. Gene, probably short for Eugene. Eugene Roe. Babe rolls the name around his mind. It suits the quiet man in a way that Edward has never suited Babe.  
A silence settles over them as Babe basks in the glory of his soulmate’s name, while Doc – Gene -- is still looking like he’s trying to sleep sitting up. A couple officers come in and the pair jump as the door swings in against the wall with a crack.  
Well, Babe jumps, Doc – Gene, Babe was going to have to get that straight -- Gene blinks and slowly looks in the direction of the noise. As endearing as Babe finds Gene’s tired movements, he knows that it won’t do him any good to keep this up.  
“Hey Gene,” Babe waits for the man to register that Babe is speaking to him. Gene makes a small sound in the back of his throat. “Maybe you should get some sleep.”  
Gene leans back and rubs his hands over his face and through his hair again. “’m fine.”  
He picks up his coffee, coffee that Babe is sure is cold by now, and takes a large gulp. “’m fine. I need to go report to Winters.”  
The dark-haired man pushes himself to a standing position and slowly blinks again. Babe isn’t sure if it’s a habit or if the man is really that tired. Then Gene straightens his back, stretches his shoulders with a yawn and suddenly Babe is looking at a different man.  
Roe steps away from the table, collecting his mug.  
“Stay safe, Heffron.” He says with a small smirk, as if he hadn't been falling into his coffee not even a minute earlier.  
It’s like the man is two people in one. The bags under his eyes seem to be smaller, the light in his eyes brighter, his skin less grey and more pink with life. Gene Roe is a tired man who sounds like he slurs his words, his accent is so thick and who rants about officers not doing things right. Doc Roe is a soldier who doesn’t need sleep, the medic everyone counts on to save them, and a man who is damn good at his job.  
Babe watches in amazement as with each step Gene becomes less Gene and more Doc Roe. A shift subtle enough that if Babe wasn’t paying attention he wouldn’t have seen. But he had seen, because he did watch, because the man is his soulmate and he finally got the chance to talk to him and Babe will be damned if he isn’t going to pay attention.  
“Christ. What the hell was that?” Babe whispers to himself as he stares at the door Gene - Doc - Gene - Roe exited out of. He eventually manages to wrangle his gaze from the door and instead looks down at his coffee.  
Babe really thought he already understood that he was a goner for this man. But watching the tired man suddenly shift, just turn off the exhaustion like a switch, Babe realizes the enigma that is Gene “Doc” Roe will actually be the death of him, if the Krauts don’t get to him first.

**Author's Note:**

> How we doing folks?
> 
> Quick facts: Most of this story is written, it's somewhere around 40k words atm, 15ish chapters all told. I'm going to try and post a chapter a week. I don't usually write, or even have a soft-spot for soulmate AUs but here we are. (AKA I read a bunch because I will read damn near anything if it's baberoe and then decided to give it my own spin).
> 
> The title comes from the song _Valium_ by Lisa Mitchell, it is (in my opinion at least) the ultimate song for any ship with Gene Roe.
> 
> Let me know if as the story goes on I should up the rating or add to the warnings to tags, I'm trying to cover the basics here given that we're functioning within the canon setting of the show. Also let me know if there's any glaring grammatical errors, spelling errors, or super annoying formatting issues, I don't have a beta reader so all errors are my own (and AO3s formatting system might be the death of me but i'm working on it).
> 
> (Do people still do the disclaimer that it's based on the show and not the real men?)


End file.
